FIG. 17 shows a method for displaying objects such as, e.g., windows on a work surface. A like method is, for example, used in the operating system Windows by the company Microsoft in order to be able to simultaneously display several windows on the work surface. As is shown in FIG. 17, first to fifth windows 101 to 105 which are overlapping are displayed on a work surface 106. Such overlapping of the first to fifth windows 101 to 105 may, however, cause a user to become confused, which may particularly be the case if many windows are displayed on the work surface, possibly in a highly overlapping condition. In order to solve this problem, there exists in this method a possibility of iconizing or reducing the windows, or placing them in the background. This does, however, have only low functionality.
In order to solve the problems in the above described method, some desktop environments such as those, e.g., of the companies HP, Xerox and SGI, or the desktop environments KDE and GNOME include possibilities of making several desktops or desks available to a computer user.
Such a method is shown in FIGS. 18 and 19. As is shown in FIG. 18, a first view on a work surface 106 comprises first and second windows 101 and 102, respectively, and in accordance with the representation in FIG. 19, a second view comprises third to fifth windows 103 to 105 on the work surface 106. In addition, first and second representatives 107 and 108 are provided on the work surface 106 which serve for being able to carry out navigation from the first view to the second view, and vice versa. These first and second representatives 107 and 108, respectively, may be provided with the aid of virtual and/or actually existing operating elements.
The advantage of such a method resides in the fact that through executing an action with the aid of suitable input means, such as e.g. a computer mouse, it is possible to change between different views established in advance. Hereby working under less cluttered conditions is made possible inasmuch as a smaller number of windows per view are displayed. For instance in the first view shown in FIG. 18, the first and second windows 101 and 102 might relate to text processing, and in the second view shown in FIG. 19, the third to fifth windows 103 to 105 might relate to image processing. In this case, the first representative 107 might have the name “text”, and the second representative might have the name “images”. In other words, respective views may order respective windows in accordance with topics. In many systems there exists a possibility of changing the names of the representatives in a user-defined way. Moreover the graphic design of the representative may reflect the optionally different graphic properties, such as e.g. shape, color etc., of a respective view, and/or represent the contents of the respective view in the manner of icons, as is the case in the system of the company Xerox.
It is a further advantage of this method that many windows are not confusingly represented in a single view, possibly even in a highly overlapping condition, which have to optionally be iconized and reduced or placed in the background to enable recognition by a user. Rather, each view includes a smaller number of windows.
It is one essential drawback of the above described method that an abrupt transition takes place upon changing from one view to another view. Such an abrupt transition is, however, not in harmony with the user's thought processes, for abrupt transitions do not exist in non-virtual life.
It accordingly is the object of the present invention to furnish a method for navigating between sections or windows in a display space, which allows for a continuous transition between views.